I’m sitting in a dance room, on the 5th floor of an office building in Chelsea.  I have to pee.  Badly.  There are about 60 people in this room.  We are here to audition for a touring production of Avenue Q.  The cast of the show consists of half a dozen human roles and another half-dozen puppets.   I’m here to audition for one of the non-puppet-duped roles, namely Brian: a chubby unemployed comedian married to a screeching harpy.

Sometimes life gives you lemonade.  Knowing full well you have diabetes.

The room is full of actors.  I’m beginning to understand Sartre better.

So far, obviously looking for the same role I am, we have 1 ren-faire geek, about 8 “I’m too fat to get straight roles” actors, about 10 “straight roles? what’s THAT supposed to mean?!” chubby cub types, and 0 other stand up comics.

The play calls for one Asian female and one African American female (to play Gary Coleman).  Asian females in the room: 1.  African American females: 0.

It is intriguing to me (and I’m guilty) that the room seems to have divided itself along opposite walls between straight (and “straight acting”) and out-and-proud types.  Not judging, here, just observing.

There is one woman over 30 in the room.  The rest of the women are all different, and yet all of a type.  The women sitting near the straight men are reading.  The women sitting with the gay men are gabbing, practicing their songs, bragging about their nieces, or conspiring with their compatriots about audition strategy.

If there are any lesbians in the room, none of them are advertising enough for me to pick up on it.  Just a curious disparity in the theater community.

Don’t wish me luck, by the way.  If I get cast and take the job, a) I’ll be making less money than unemployment in TX, and b) I’ll then have to report the income and end up re-setting my salary requirements way way lower.  I’m here to say I did it.

It’s almost 9.  We’ll be getting started soon.

Update at 9:45EST:  I’ve been here since 7:30.  At 9 all the women were excused.  Since then the room has filled with at least 100 men…well, boys mostly…with a line whose length I can’t determine spilling out into the hall. 217 men total.  We’re turning in our headshots/resumes in groups of 50 to be “typed”.  In this case, typing evidently means they give your headshot one glance to see if you fit the physical type of any of available roles.

Update at 12:15pm EST:    7 minutes after my last post I was excused from the audition because I didn’t fit the type.  Which just means they don’t follow me on facebook.

I am sitting in the insanely overpriced cafe on the first floor of the Natural History Museum.  Finally saw the gem room (which was closed the last time I was here).

Headed off to parts unknown until it’s time to head back to Washington Heights  and get my room packed out for my flight tomorrow.  Off to DC first thing in the morning.  Now the real adventure begins.

Over the long weekend, we made use of our National Park Pass and drove down 2.5 hours to Pinnacles National Monument for some hiking. It was our first time there, and we weren’t sure what to expect. At the visitor center, I picked up my passport stamp [even though I'd left the passport at home] and a trail map/brochure.

It was already past noon, so we decided to hike one of the shorter trails, which we also heard was one of the more scenic ones – the Moses Springs – Rim Trail Loop.

We hiked to the Reservoir via Bear Gulch Cave and looped back down. In the brochure, this particular trail was recommended for children, so I was all about it.

On the way up to the reservoir, we passed through Bear Gulch Cave [a talus cave], which was the perfect spot to cool off. It was nearly 100 degrees, and I was sweating way too much. As we approached the entrance, it felt like there was A/C blasting, but it was just the cool air coming from the caves!

There were piles and piles of boulders like this all around.

The roof of the cave was formed when these boulders happened to lodge themselves in positions where they wouldn’t fall through to the ground. Considering the high level of seismic activity for the area [we're in California after all!], it was a little unsettling. At any moment, the big one could hit, and we could be crushed by these rocks!

On the way back from the reservoir, we took a pluot / strawberry break. There’s nothing better than sweet and juicy fruit on a hike!

What is your favorite snack to bring on a hike?

It held us over until we got home for dinner. Nothing exciting there. We just we finished off the leftovers from lunch. RV attacked the rest of his giant arm-sized burrito, and I ate the rest of my chile verde [not as photogenic].

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I haven’t posted much because this journal is, in theory, about the travelling part of this adventure.  I just haven’t been travelling much of late.  My hosts (two of my dearest friends) have made me feel comforted and welcome to such an extent that the trip can only go down hill from here.  I have done *some* stuff since our last visit and that open mic.

I have visited The Cloisters.  It’s a castle and grounds built and donated to the City of New York by John D. Rockefeller…one presumes one brick per life destroyed by his business dealings.  It is a beautiful place.  I have wanted to visit it since it was featured in and episode of the Real Ghostbusters (The Animated Series).  Some of you will think I am kidding.  I am not.

Jen, Brad, and I went to Coney Island.  We walked the board walk.  We saw the freak show (and I passed along greetings from Lizard Man to Insectavora). We rode the Cyclone, the oldest wooden roller coaster in the US.

The Cyclone can best be described as a series of tiny seats, attached in a train-like configuration and affixed to a moving track with undulations and sheer drops evidently designed to force you to punch yourself in the taint with your own testicles.   I would ride it again on a dare but only with appropriate undergarments.

Today I did laundry, got square with the TWC, and spent some time preparing an audition piece.  That’s right.  While I’m here I’ve decided to go ahead and subject myself to one of those supposedly humiliating cattle-call auditions.

The most important thing that’s happened all week, at least for me, is that the Universe has seen fit to put people in my path who are exactly whom I need to meet and exactly when I need to meet them.

The first day of All You Can Jet 2010 is here and I’m flying. Not really any way things could have gone much better. Well, maybe a little bit, but not enough that I’m complaining. I woke up this morning in Guyana so that meant a bit of a later start on the AYCJ adventure for me. I actually didn’t make it back to JFK until around 1:40pm but I was through immigration and customs and inside T5, boarding pass in hand and hanging out with some old and new AYCJ friends about 45 minutes later.

I knew that I’d miss the kick-off party because of the arrival time from Guyana. Still, I held out hope that there would be a few freebies around to pick up even after the main party had dissipated. The first AYCJ item I spotted was actually outside security in the ticket counter area. One of the crewmembers had an AYCJ 2010 pin on her lanyard. I was somewhat racing past to get inside to meet people but I stopped short upon seeing the button. A bit of chatting later and we agreed to a trade: one of the extra bag tags I had (thanks, Morgan!) for her pin. A no-brainer in my mind. Deal done, I attached the pin and headed in to the terminal.

Inside I immediately went to my usual seat. In the food court there are two raised platforms. The higher one has a plethora of power outlets to go with the great views of folks coming and going in the terminal. The very first day the terminal opened I sat up there for hours soaking up the experience; I haven’t left since. Just my luck as I got up there – I spotted AYCJ legend 30DaysOnJetBlue hanging out with a few other folks. Introductions and handshakes quickly devolved into conversations of itineraries, tips and destination debates. The AYCJ community truly is one, even if very much an ad hoc one that ebbs and flows depending on who’s around at the time. The common bond – a love of travel – is a great way to meet and engage with completely random strangers.

Speaking of completely random strangers, returning from the service counter where I was trying to get my return boarding pass printed I saw an AYCJ luggage tag hanging off a red backpack attached to a tall guy walking through the food court. Community needs fresh blood to grow. Before I knew it Adam was explaining the itinerary he and his wife had mapped out. They live in Toronto and drove down to Buffalo to start their adventures. A week in California followed by Bogotá and then maybe Bermuda.  I invited them to join us for more travel talk which they did eventually once they realized we knew where the power outlets were.

JetBlue has gone all-out in the marketing for AYCJ this year. Last year it was something of a surprise to them just how much the community rallied around the event. This year they came prepared. Luggage tags were handed out in advance and they had other stuff ready to go early on. The party this morning included free T-shirts and apparently Boston was giving out zip-up sweatshirts. The biggest surprise (which stopped being a surprise last night when the internal communications release went out) was that the airline actually named one of their airplanes after the promotion. The Airbus A320 – All Blue Can Jet – was unveiled at the party this morning. It also includes a new tail design with a bit of orange in it. I’m a huge fan. They also had a decent presence in JFK’s T5. Some of it was left over from the party Tuesday morning but other bits were out for the whole month, including signs like the one above.

Before I knew it my two hour layover had evaporated and it was time to head off to the gate for my first AYCJ flight of the year. Just a quick turn for me tonight – JFK-Syracuse-JFK. I wandered over to the boarding gate and thoroughly confused the Gate Agent by asking him to confirm that seats 10 rows behind my assigned seat were still empty. If there are open pairs on the Embraer E90 there’s no reason to have a seat-mate. But I needed to keep my seat assignment to ensure that I get the credit for the $5 spend on EML seats. I then boarded “Come Fly With Blue” and made the quick trip up to Syracuse. Tim and James provided great service in the cabin, including getting me my favorite snack (Animal Crackers) even though they weren’t officially on the menu for the express service options on the 45 minute flight.

I have to be in town for the next couple days but come Friday the real travel begins. I’ve got Florida (twice), Las Vegas (twice) and California (three different airports) on the schedule for the first seven days. A dozen or so flights and over 10,000 miles on the agenda. Plus I get to fly at least nine routes I’ve never flown before and through two cities that are new to me. It’s gonna be a blast!

Here are a few more photos from AYCJ Day 1.

A tip o’ the JetBlue All You Can Jet cap to Benny over at Get Busy Living for putting together a pretty solid list of tips to help ease the strain on the body that comes from packing oneself in an aluminum tube and hurtling around at 550ish miles/hour for extended periods of time. All that flying will mess up a body something special if care isn’t taken.

My personal favorites on the list are numbers 1, 3 and 7.

(1) Staying truly hydrated is nearly impossible when spending extended periods of time in an environment that is roughly 10% humidity. Unless you’ve trained in the desert you’re really not prepared for this. Drink plenty of water (club soda is more per serving from the FAs, plus little bubbles) and not so much booze. Yeah, go easy on the booze. Hard for me to really encourage that since I like a couple minis on the flight just as much as the next guy, but it really is bad for you from a hydration perspective.

(3) The walking around tip is also a great way to meet other AYCJ folks on the plane and to chat with the flight attendants. Just make sure you stay out of their way when they’re trying to do a beverage service. And under no circumstances should you start serving drinks and snacks out of the rear galley unless you’ve been with the same crew all day long and become trusted enough by them to do so. Not that I did that a couple times last year or anything.

(7) Finally, sleep whenever you can. If you’re really planning on partying for the full 30 days anyways your body will let you know when it is time to take a break. Fortunately, with the rather spacious legroom on most JetBlue flights there is plenty of room to relax and catch a bit of shuteye on the plane.

One other tip that isn’t covered on Benny’s list that I’ll add on is to learn to roll with the punches. Flights are going to get delayed. Weather happens and so do other issues. Getting stressed out about it isn’t going to solve the problem. Being friendly and nice to the gate agent will. Being the one person not yelling at them works wonders when it comes time to get problems solved.

Happy Jetting!

Just got the awesomest email of the week:

Time to get my AYCJ started! The first of roughly 20 flights and 30K miles I’ve booked so far. And I still have a couple days to play with. Maybe Nantucket for a few hours or something more far flung. Who knows….

Just how crazy do you have to be to take advantage of the JetBlue All You Can Jet pass? How about no money, no job and selling out the entire contents of your apartment to fund the trip?

Or just a crazy guy who loves to fly and looks to book a ton of miles and fly all month long (that one’s me).

A couple great stories, and some quotes from the Senior VP of Marketing for JetBlue, too.  

Definitely worth a look and a read over at the Travel With Val site. Or just straight to the video at NY1.

We stopped by La Villa De Jerez in Hollister on our way to Pinnacles National Monument. This burrito was as long as RV’s arm and stuffed with chile verde goodness.

I couldn’t resist the photo opp.

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I think I’ve mentioned previously the reason I love the farmers’ market: fresh organic berries. Another reason is the significant savings for the quality of food. Of course, not all farmers’ markets are made equal, and some are more expensive to shop at than others. Luckily, I live right by one that is affordable and made even more so by following a few simple tips/tricks.

Prices change throughout the day at the farmers’ market. Head over during the latter half of the market’s day. We headed over around noon and did pretty well.

We picked up this gorgeous pallet of organic strawberries for $10! It was originally marked as $15, so we were caught off guard when it came time to pay. I think they were trying to sell everything and go home for the day. Plus, one of the other stands was selling two pallets for $20. We were able to snag a good price without having to buy two pallets! We intend on freezing a lot of it, so buying in bulk is good. However, two pallets would have been too much. We can really only fit so many strawberries in the freezer!

We are planning on having some friends over soon and possibly cooking a few meals during the week, so we also picked out some fresh vegetables. While I did not intentionally do this, most of what I picked out ended up weighing a little over a pound. Rather than calculate the exact price, they would often round down and give them to me for the price of a pound! Another nice surprise, and I am certainly more inclined to look for their booth the next time around.

Do you shop at your local farmers’ market? Do you have your own tips and tricks?

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Scant hours after I arrived in NYC yesterday, I was sitting in the Marquis Theater on Broadway taking in Twila Tharpe’s Frank Sinatra retrospective, “Come Fly Away” from one of the best seats in the house.  I’d already had a fabulous lunch prepared for me by a star of stage and screen, followed by a slice of Junior’s cheesecake and a chocolate Egg Cream.

This morning I got up and Jen Simard and I took a road trip up to Cold Spring, NY…the town where Pete Seeger moved his family after his coffee-shop days in Manhattan.  The Hudson River valley is so beautiful that every copy of the movie Hudson Hawk should be destroyed for taking its name in vain.

We had a great walk around the site of the old West Point Foundry….and when say “around” I mean we got shitty directions from the girl at the museum and the trail is not marked so we walked for 2 miles in the woods and never saw so much as a matchstick of the foundry.  Meh.  I needed the exercise.

Afterwards we came back to the apartment, I spent a few humbling minutes on the phone with the TWC and then I headed out for one of the numerous “open mics” available in town.  I used quotation marks around open mic because, to my Austin-spoiled comedy sensibilities, if I have to pay for stage time or bring a guaranteed number of people, then it’s not an open mic.  We don’t know how good we’ve got it,  Austin Comedy Scene.

The show I picked for my first out-of-Texas, or even out of Austin, experience was the Times Square Comedy club open mic.  Sign-up at 5:30, show at 6:00, $5 for 5 minutes of stage time.

The club is in the remains of what was the last big strip club in Times Square after Giuliani started his Disney-fication of the area.  They haven’t redecorated.  I didn’t take pictures because it’s so dark my craptastic camera-phone couldn’t see anything at all.  It still felt like a strip club in that I was paying to get one of my emotional needs met only there were not as many cute women and 0 audience members; just a room full of comics who did their shit and left.

By the time I got on stage (3rd from the end) there were five comics left; three just hanging out and 2 still waiting for their slots.  I went up after a Crazy Church Lady,  but the fun, jovial kind of crazy.   Well, no, that’s being a little generous.  Mostly just crazy.

I ate shit. I face planted.  I blanked.  I bit it.  I lost every joke I’ve ever written right out of my head.  The good news:  I got the tough one out of the way and it was only for 5 other comics.

Then I went to Times Square proper and farted on people on purpose and took this lovely photo:

American Idiot

I am currently participating in a 60-day hydration challenge. The idea is to drink 60 ounces of water every day for 60 days, starting September 1st. I have never been very good at remembering to keep hydrated. In fact, it’s one of my 101 in 1001: 019 – Stay hydrated.

By participating in the challenge, I am hoping to make drinking enough water a habit. I drink a lot of tea at work, but I don’t think it was even close to the 60 ounces.

So far so good. I’ve been drinking enough water. Rather than absorbing it, however, the water passes right through me, and I am making way more trips to the restroom. Ugh.

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When your friend’s mom asks us to help her with the consumption of the delicious fruits from the trees in her garden, how can you refuse? We sure didn’t, and last night, we transported these pluots [along with some pears] to the kitchen in cardboard boxes and paper bags.

Once in the kitchen, I went to work, sorting and washing all the fruit.

The ones pictured above were the ones that weren’t overly ripe and squashed to smithereens. If you didn’t know already, a pluot is a hybrid fruit – a cross of a plum and apricot with more plum-like tendencies. Its counterpart, the aprium, is more of an apricot. There are multiple colors because our friend’s mom’s tree grows three of the over 20 varieties of pluots.

For the overly ripe and NOT squashed pluots, I’m turning them into a pluot puree. They will be mixed with some bubbly for a pluot fizz, which I have so lovingly deemed “a Pellini,” similar to Bellini.

Before throwing them in for steaming, I slit an “x” on the bottom of each pluot.

I don’t have a steam rack set-up for any of the pots/pans just yet, so into the rice cooker they went! I used the steaming rack that came with the rice cooker instead.

The skins came off quite easily! I’m going to have to pit them tonight because by the time my fruit sorting operation was done, it was already past my bedtime. Once pitted, they’ll go into the food processor and one step closer to becoming pureed.

That’s a lot of pluots for two people, so we are inviting our friends over to help eat/drink them. I’m going to try making pluot ice cream or sorbet. I’m not sure what other recipes to try, but we need to finish these pluots before they go bad!

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My AYCJ pass technically doesn’t start for 3 more days, but I flew to NYC on my own and I’m going to be using it as a hub.  So for now, let’s talk a little bit about the mechanics of the operation.  Nathan went into details about the hardware he used on his adventure last year and maybe that’s a good place to start.

From left to right:

1) Verizon Global USB air card…purchased from Best Buy under their 30-day-money-back guarantee plan…and guaranteed to be returned to Best Buy at about day 28.

2)ASUS eeePC running Win7 Starter…also purchased from Best Buy….without realizing the retail-store version of the comes without a wireless modem…hence the air card.

3) Bottle of hydrocodone.  The last remnants of my health insurance. Fuck ResCare.

4)  Kodak Zi6 HD video camera.

5) My shitty LG Shine phone will be serving as my primary camera.  Yeah. I know.  I don’t care.  I never knew how much I loved my blackberry until they took it away.  I’m not getting an Iphone. At least not until Nov 14th when I can get the upgrade price.

7)  This keeps people from talking to me on airplanes.  Seriously.  Which of these two guys would you rather flap your mouth at 35K feet in the air?

’nuff said.

-chad

So, other than waking up late and not having time to verify directions to my friends Brad and Jen’s apt. before hitting the road, my trip this morning was uneventful.  Almost boring.  I can handle travel like that.  For the cost of a Chick-fil-A meal I got from JFK to 187th St in Manhattan with everything intact.

Stay tuned….

Hi.

I’m Chad.  I’m new here.

The All You Can Jet pass dropped into my lap at precisely the right time in my life.  I’d been divorced for 7 months and laid off for 2 days.  I had a small pile of cash and no interest in jumping back into the grind.  I have other personal reasons for wanting to be out of this town that I love so much for a little while.

One of them is jokes.   I tell them.  I actually tell them relatively well. Turns out there’s a comedy club in nearly every domestic city that Jet Blue serves and me with all this time on my hands…you see how easy the decision was when it was presented.

So here I sit, 6 hours from my first flight…not technically on the pass…I had to get to NYC earlier than the 6th…but the first leg in my journey nonetheless.  My room mate is taking me to the airport at 5:30 for a direct flight to NYC, landing around noon.

My goal: Bare minimum, 10 cities, 10 c0medy clubs.  That may not seem like a lofty goal, but I’m new at this.  Give me a day or two to get my air legs under me.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

-chad

How is it possible to dedicate three separate posts to the same day? It’s the only way when you like to jam-pack your days the way I do! I’d rather not make my posts more than a few scrolls long.

In the evening, we took a walk through The Annex since the housewarming party was in the area. I made sure to try poutine the first chance that I got, which happened to be at The Acme Burger Company.

It’s French fries topped with fresh cheese curd, covered with brown gravy, the perfect late-night splurge. Definitely not part of an everyday diet, but it can be delicious, especially after a few drinks! After the housewarming party, we wandered around the neighborhood alleys to check out the art. The first thirty shots on my camera in Toronto must have been graffiti art.

At one point in the evening, we were standing in front of Lee’s Palace, a music venue that opened up in the mid-80s, talking to the owner about the mural out front. In 2009, due to the overload of pigeon compost and crap behind the front of the building, the building had to undergo some renovations, and the mural that originally went up in 1986 came down. After getting rid of the pigeon compost and crap, they were able to get the artist of the original mural, Runt aka Alex Currie, to come back and paint the venue’s new face.

Here are some articles I found regarding Lee’s Palace’s new face. Of course, this post would be incomplete without photos of the mural:

Totally random. Totally cool.

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After wandering about the markets of Toronto on Saturday morning, Naly and I met up with a group for a food crawl in Little India. The crawl would visit five different spots in the area, but we would only tag along for four.

The first stop, Motimahal, was a very simple-looking eatery. We ordered vegetarian samosas to pad our stomachs for more food to come. I also ordered a mango lassi, which I drank rather quickly since the group was ready to head on to the next place, Udupi Palace. It was good, and I wish I had savored it.

At Udupi Palace, we all ordered dosas on the recommendation of the gal leading the food crawl. Tasty, but not anything I cannot find in the Bay Area. In fact, upon looking at the photo of the menu above, I now see their other locations, mostly in California. Update: There’s one in San Francisco, actually!

After filling up on dosas, we didn’t really have room in our bellies for the sugar cane at India Paan, but we still walked by the stand because it was on our way to the next stop, Bombay Chowpatty.

This was more of a snack joint and video store. I was pretty filled up from the samosa and dosa, so I just observed what was ordered by everyone else. Looked yummy. Here’s the Dahi Bhalla – lentil dumplings soaked in cool whipped yogurt with tamarind chutney topped with roasted cumin and cilantro:

I didn’t catch the name of this one though:

Naly and I left the group before the crawl actually ended to pick up some desserts for the housewarming party in the evening. She considered getting mangoes.

Ultimately, however, the Indian desserts at BJ International won.

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Why P-pesto?! Because it’s got pistachios in it! It seemed like every recipe called for pine nuts, hazel nuts or walnuts, but I had no such nuts in the house. What I did find in the house were unsalted pistachio meats, so that is what I used instead.

The sun-dried tomatoes and shrimp were subsequently added when RV came home, but I DID make the pesto and pasta:

2 cups of fresh organic basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup unsalted pistachio meats
3 garlic cloves, peeled
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

The steps + stop to scrape down sides of food processor w/ a rubber spatula, as necessary.
1 – Combine basil and pistachio meats in a food processor, pulsing a few times.
2 – Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
3 – Slowly add some of the olive oil, pulse a bit and add some more.
4 – Add the cheese, pulse until blended.
5 – Add salt and pepper to taste.

I am slowly going from “does not cook” to “sometimes dabbles in the kitchen and doesn’t poison everyone.”

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I love running down to the farmers’ market on Saturday and picking up fresh organic berries! Here’s $19 in blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries:

For the longest time, I would worry about berries. You have to eat ‘em pretty quickly, or they’ll spoil. I don’t know the $$ in berries I had to toss because I left them sitting in the fridge for a little too long and had to toss everything. :/

Well, I worry no longer. RV picked up the FoodSaver v2240 [the black version to match our kitchen] for the purpose of vacuum-sealing fish, and now we use it for packing away berries too. Since we can seal ‘em away, we can buy in bulk at the farmers’ market and have enough berries for two weeks. We defrost them by sticking them into the fridge the night before and have our smoothies in the morning!

It’s a fuzzy photo, but you get the idea! I actually took the time to sort through the berries, so the overripe ones would be eaten right away, while everything else is vacuum-sealed and thrown into the freezer in portioned pouches. It takes a little extra time, but it’s so worth not squishing the ripe berries and getting the juices all over the vacuum-sealing process!

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Earlier last week, I attended an event at Azalea, a local boutique in San Francisco. Mission Minis was one of the sponsors, and I was so happy to finally get to try their mini cupcakes! I’d heard of them, but just never got the chance to visit their shop.

They were moist and delicious! Batch 19 was also a sponsor, and I definitely recommend the Peanut Butter Kiss [pictured above before I devoured it] as a pairing for their beer. At $1 a piece, I wouldn’t mind stopping by for a small treat!

In fact, I’m heading out to a birthday brunch this afternoon. Guess what I’m bringing? Two dozen mini cupcakes! The birthday girl loves cupcakes, and I found a great Plum District deal on it. I couldn’t pass it up, knowing how tasty those Mission Minis are.

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